Is it something you do, if so do you alternate pick all the time (on single note/lead paying) or only use on occasion?

I realised recently that if I am playing some kind of improvised lead, I will alternate pick, but not all the time but if I am learing a solo or a riff, I will play it with downstrokes only. I'm trying to relearn some stuff using alternate picking, either strictly or where it makes sense/is more efficient, but I reckon its more difficult than learning the piece in the first place? The way I was playing them sounded good, but may not have been the right way.

Basically I only use alternate when it's too fast for down-stroke, e.g the solo in Tom Petty's "American Girl" or mandolin-like scrubbing, like on Rory Gallagher's "Brute Force And Ignorance". And I've never seriously looked at sweep picking either.

That's interesting - the only thing I am playing in strict alternate picking is Crossroads, it seems to help with the timing on the main riff, everything else it is the odd upstroke where it helps keep the rhythm/increase speed.

I sometimes use altenate picking when playing arpeggios, especially when the arpeggios are mixed with strumming. Feels sort of natural. Riffs are always down strokes for me. I suppose that one could relearn any riff with alternate picking, but I tend to stay with whatever feels natural.

I use alternate picking occasionally, but most of the time I actually exclusively play with upstrokes. I never noticed this until somebody pointed it out to me. Weird, huh?_________________BEIGE PALACE

I was practising some of the new Casa Bonita stuff last night and realised I can only do this one tricky run (in 'Misadventure Time', future fact fans)with downpicking.

I think because the tuning is pretty weird, the lack of normal tension means the string is in a different position when I'm trying to up-pick. Pretty weird realisation that I'm automatically compensating for dat slack

edit: no wait! It's in triplets, so I'm going down-up-down, down-up-down, rather than down-up-down up-down-up. So even odder. Fascinating._________________andrew floss musics

Last edited by Doog on Thu May 07, 2015 1:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

All good information, I'm learning some more challenging stuff and trying to move my playing along and wanted to get an idea of whether my mainly downpicking style, especially for riff based pieces, was me just doing it wrong. Happy to see the concensus is IDWAW, but I'm going to think more about picking style when I'm learning something I reckon.

Everything I play I always automatically alternate pick, I'll also economy pick sometimes too. I think if you work it into your playing enough it just happens without thinking making everything a little more fluid sounding. There's a bunch of lessons I posted on ways of practicing picking somewhere on this website if anyone is interested._________________www.gabrielwareing.com